


Hooligans (Rei and Jared excerpt)

by CopperCrane2



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:47:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22738273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCrane2/pseuds/CopperCrane2
Summary: Excerpt from my unfinished Senshi x Shitennou fic, "Hooligans". Actual Hooligans. No outtakes or such nonsense. These are two sections that would have been in the final fic.Requested by, and written for, d3fiant - with my thanks.This has a good few spoilers FYI, but it might be, like, another decade until this fic is maybe finished, or even looked at, so I wouldn't worry too much, lol.Charlie x
Relationships: Hino Rei/Jadeite
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. The 'Talk'

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, for those of you who don't know, I have a behemoth on ff.net called Hooligans that I published and have yet to finish from... ohhhhh, about ten years ago? (Jebus Mary and Joseph do I feel old)... anyway, this AMAZING person, known as d3fiant, helped out an awesome friend of mine in exchange for nothing more than 2,500 words of Rei x Jade in Hooligans. 
> 
> The thing of it is, I am *soooooo* late in delivering this (when am I not??), so I wrote d3fiant an extra 1,000 words of Rei x Jadeite from Hooligans to apologise. 
> 
> It's two scenes, one from the middle-ish part of the fic, where Rei and Jared are sort of doing this 'friends with benefits' thing, but where he is clearly far more in love with her than she is with him (even though she kind of is totally in love with him too, but too stubborn and afraid to admit it), and the second scene would have actually been one of the last scenes in the fic - the denouement of their particular story, if you will... 
> 
> Anyway, THANK YOU D3FIANT! And enjoy! I can't believe people still remember this ridiculous fic from so long ago, and I am eternally grateful that you did! 
> 
> I have done my best to recreate the headspace and writing style I was in for the fic, and I hope, I *hope*, I **hope** I have pulled this off to your satisfaction. 
> 
> Thank you again (for your kindness, generosity and patience!)
> 
> Charlie x

“Hey Rei.” 

“Good luck with the game,” she said in response to Ceithin’s greeting, and then gave a quick, reciprocated wave to Noel as both men headed out the door, gym bags stuffed and slung over their shoulders. 

“I thought I heard you,” Mamoru said as he made his way down the stairs, “Usagi’s out with Makoto. I think they went to Pizza Hut.”

“Oh, I know,” she said, and didn’t elaborate further. 

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at her with a confused expression. Clearly she had no intention of leaving, and it was obvious that he was heading out, so he didn’t really understand what she was doing. “Well, you’re welcome to stay, of course, but none of the girls are here and all of us are out for pretty much all afternoon and most of the night except Jared who’s-” the penny stopped. “Oh.”

“Um, it’s not what you think,” Rei said, even though it was exactly what he thought. “I need to borrow an economics book from him.”

“Sure,” Mamoru nodded with vigour. “Ok, I think I’ll take Usagi to see a movie tonight. Have, uh, have a good study session?” He grimaced. “Sorry. It’s Friday so Zach will be out at some club and Noel and Ceithin are gone until tomorrow, so you guys should have lots of privacy.”

“Thank you.” Her cheeks began to feel a little hot. She wasn’t overly shy about sex. She wasn’t Ami, but she wasn’t exactly Mina either, and Mamoru was Mamoru. It made things awkward. He was practically family. 

His eyes widened in panic. “I meant _for studying!_ Privacy for studying!”

“Oh, hey Rei.”

The two of them looked up and visibly sighed with relief at the sight of Jared at the top of the stairs. “Come on up, I saw an episode of this new TV show, I thought you might like it.”

Mamoru waved at Jared, and grinned. The American just had a presence about him that made things more relaxed. “Have fun-” he stopped, “Uh… I mean- I… _nevermindbye_.” And with that he was gone. 

“I don’t watch television,” she said, walking up the stairs to meet him. 

“Yeah I know, but you both were looking so adorably awkward I figured I needed to diffuse the embarrassment somehow, and that was the best I could come up with.”

“He didn’t believe you.”

“He wasn’t going to believe anything I said. I’m sure he heard you through the wall the other night.”

“Ew,” she said, walking past him to the first floor, “don’t be crude.”

“Shut me up, then.” 

“Not in your hallway, we’re not animals.”

He found that hilarious, but wisely he stopped joking around. “Come on,” he said, opening his room door and then locking it behind them when they entered. “Let me rock your world.”

“Don’t build up my expectations, you’re setting the bar pretty high.” She whipped off her top and bra in one swoop and dumped it on the office chair by his desk.

She turned around to find him already naked. “Have I ever disappointed you before?” he asked, picking her up. 

“No,” she admitted, wrapping her jeaned legs around his waist, kissing him, “and you’d better not start now.”

* * *

They were both out of breath. Laying on their backs, side by side, sweat coating their bodies as they did their best to recover from their latest bout of naked olympics. “Can I ask you something?”

Rei swallowed, a little thirsty, and made a mental note to remember to bring a flask of water next time. “Yes.”

“You know all those meditation tricks you were teaching me?”

She tuts, displeased at his referring to her entire philosophy so disrespectfully. “They’re not tricks.”

“Sorry,” he said, looking at her, “you know what I mean.”

She lifted her arm and flopped it onto his chest in a kind of exhausted smack. “Apology accepted. Barely.”

He rolled onto his side, propping his head up with his hand. “Have you… have you ever found yourself able to-” he was struggling to find the words. 

This was weird. He was always so sure of himself. “Spit it out, Jared.”

“Connect,” he said, “ have you ever found yourself connecting with how other people are feeling?”

“Like being more empathetic?” She thought about it. “In a way. I find meditation helps calm me down, it gives me the right state of mind to think and process things - takes the emotion out of it - and so yes, it does allow me to be more considerate of others’ feelings.”

“No,” he stumbled, “I mean, that’s great and all, but…” It’s not what he meant. He sat himself up, as if that would help him concentrate better, and leaned his head against his wall. “When I was little, I had problems in school, at home, everywhere. Behavioural issues - like, really bad ones. I’m pretty sure they all thought I was a sociopath in the making.”

She had no idea where he was going with this, but he seemed serious so she listened. “I, um… part of the problem was I would act out at random times. I couldn’t- I couldn’t understand why people were sad or happy, I wouldn’t react in the right way to things: I’d feel happy or angry or upset when I had no reason to be, and then sometimes I was even _too_ empathetic. When my great-grandmother died I cried so hard and long they had to take me to the hospital because they were literally terrified I was hurting myself.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She could relate to him. She knew what that kind of pain felt like. “Were you very close?”

“Not at all. I think I was… four? I’d never even met her and they didn’t take me to the funeral. They had the wake at our house and to be honest, I was too young to understand what was going on, but my grandmother, my great-aunt and my dad were really upset and that just triggered this… this massive meltdown.” He looked at her, to gauge her reaction, uncharacteristically nervous. “They tested me for autism, hormone imbalances, behavioural disorders, at one point they even thought I was being abused… I went through so many doctors and psychiatrists that I spent more time in waiting rooms than I did in classes.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that, it sounds rough.”

“You know what fixed it?”

“What?”

“TV.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Television?” she asked, skeptical.

“Yeah. Movies, shows, anything that had someone feeling something on screen.”

“I don’t…” she didn’t understand where this was going. 

“It’s going to sound a little crazy, but I think… part of the reason I didn’t understand how to control my own emotions- that I wasn’t having the ‘correct’ response,” he used his fingers to air quote, “was because I was just feeding entirely off of other people’s feelings.”

Rei was taken aback. He couldn’t have been implying what she thought he was implying... could he? “What are you saying?”

“There was this moment of clarity. I remember it so perfectly. My parents were busy that day, mom was on the phone, she was heavily pregnant with my youngest brother at the time, dad had a late appointment with a client and my older brother was upstairs doing homework. Mom usually hated us watching TV - she was one of those who used to say ‘TV rots your brain!’ - but she was busy and I was bored, so I went into the living room and because I didn’t think she would notice I put it on. ‘The Golden Girls’ was playing, and it was the episode where Dorothy said that famous line about either buying ice cream or committing a felony?”

Rei shook her head, having no idea what he was talking about. 

“Ok, we’re going to have to remedy that asap, because you would love the Girls. Anyway, I um,” he scratched his face and smiled, “I remember she said the line and… I mean I was a kid, I didn’t get it, Dorothy was upset because she thought her friend was sleeping with her ex but I didn’t understand that, and I remember I didn’t know what a felony was, I was like, eight at the time, so I didn’t laugh,” he said it like it was some incredible revelation, “but it was supposed to be funny, you know? because there was a laugh track. But… _I_ didn’t find it funny. And that’s when it hit me. I had _my own_ emotions. So I started watching more TV and my parents let me because it seemed to calm me down - I was finding that sometimes I would think something was funny and I would laugh, and then sometimes I wouldn’t, but it didn’t matter. People on TV could be sad or horrified and depressed and I would be fine - I wasn’t… my body wasn’t forcing me to feel what those characters were feeling. For once, my emotions were in tune with my own thoughts, with… me.”

She sat up, too, Senshi instincts kicking in. “Are you saying you’re empathic?”

He didn’t respond. 

“Jared?”

“I suppose I am.”

She pulled away and his heart sank.

The potential things he could have felt were dangerous, let alone embarrassing and _extremely_ private. “Have you been…” she pointed to herself, asking the question through her gesture.

“No, no, God no, I wouldn’t. I mean, I would _never_ , not on purpose-” Rei’s eyes widened and he knew what she was thinking, “and I haven’t! Not just with you. I mean, sometimes it’s not my fault, if there’s something really big going on inside someone and I’m near them, I’ll pick it up, but I shut it off quick. I’ve learnt to control it.”

This is something she needs to talk to the girls about. Except that would involve other questions, other things she was not ready to discuss or think about. “I see.”

“But I wanted to tell you, for- for two reasons, I suppose. I don’t know. I thought you might believe me, I trust you, I-” He was about to say something else, but then changed his mind and Rei sincerely hoped it wasn’t what she thought he was going to say. “And I wanted to be honest. I wanted to share this with you, so that they’re no secrets between us.”

“Oh.” She adjusted herself, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “Oh. I-”

He grimaced. She probably thought he was some delusional weirdo. “Should I not have said anything?”

“No, I’m glad you told me, and I believe you, but-”

“It’s a lot,” he said, before she had a chance to finish, “I know.”

“That’s not-” this time she stopped, annoyed at herself for not being able to put how she felt into words. She didn’t want to upset him either, but she didn’t want to give the wrong impression. “Jared, I like you.”

He looked down, thinking that he knew where this was going. “Shit.”

“No, it’s not that. I think we’re friends, and I think what we have now is great and I’m happy that you feel you can tell me something so personal, but I just… I don’t- I can’t reciprocate.”

“What do you mean?”

“I-” she got up. “I should really go.” 

“Rei-”

“No,” she threw off his bed sheets and started looking for her clothing. “This is a lot to take in.”

“Should I not have told you?”

“Jared, it’s not what you’ve said, it’s the fact that you _said_ it.”

“What the hell does _that_ mean?” He frowned, becoming upset, too. “I thought we had something, we talk all the time. We were just talking and-”

“That’s the problem. _You_ talk. You talk and you talk and you tell me things, _personal_ things-”

“Should- I mean, should I not? I ask you about stuff all of the time, you’re the one who doesn’t want to share, and I’m cool with that, but I didn’t realise what I do offends you. Am I not listening enough? Have I done something wrong? What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing, I-” she balled her hands into fists as she searched the floor, not really looking. She must have walked past the chair with her bra and top on it three times. “I just came here for- a release.” Seeing his face, she tried to fix it. “I mean, I really like that we’re friends and I want to stay friends so that we can, um, so that we can talk about things. I want to keep doing… _this_ with you, but I… don’t want it to be anything more.” 

“Oh.”

“Not… not for the time being, anyway.”

“Hey,” he said, finally understanding. “Come back in here,” and when she remained in place he smiled, “come on, it’s okay, don’t worry.”

After a moment of hesitation she joined him back on the bed, and leant into his touch. 

“We don’t have to be anything more than you want us to be, Rei. I’m sorry I pushed this.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. There’s just a lot going on, my life isn’t exactly simple, things aren’t-” she stopped, finding it impossible to put all of her pain into words: being a senshi, her family’s consistent abandonment of her- her mother, her father, Kaidou, her grandfather… How could she ever tell him? Why would she even try? 

“You haven’t, you really haven’t. I was just caught up in my own insecurity about this weird thing I can do. I thought it would be unethical to _not_ tell you at this point, but it doesn’t mean anything, especially if you’re not comfortable being… more.” 

“It is a pretty weird ability,” she said and he laughed. 

They sat together for a little while. Until Jared felt they were relaxed again. “Are you okay to stay? Or do you want to go home? You want me to call someone you feel more comfortable with?”

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “You just had your mouth on my- my...” she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the word. It was so _crude_ . “We just did _that_ ,” she said instead. “I don’t think I could say I’m not comfortable with you.”

His eyes softened, like he was somehow touched by her awkward admission. She blushed, finding the whole thing too intimate, but then he grinned wolfishly and she didn’t feel quite so shy anymore. “Want me to do it again?” 

Her eyes widened. “Don’t you want me to… um, reciprocate?”

“Sure,” he said as he pushed her back down onto the bed, “later. But for now I want to hear you make that little noise again.”

“What nois-” she cut herself off in favour of a clipped, high pitched cry as he licked her clit. 

“That one.”

“Shut up,” she said, pushing his head back down, “and don’t stop.”


	2. The Airport Finale

“Oi! Hey, hey no, you can’t come through here!”

Rei was  _ rudely _ blocked by some  _ idiot _ in a blue uniform. Granted, she  _ was  _ trying to go through airport security. Without a ticket. And skipping the entire queue. And she wasn’t ‘trying to get through’ so much as ‘sprinting like a mad woman’, but still.  _ Rude. _ “But I’m trying to get to him. He’s going to leave and it’s important I tell him something first.”

The guard was blocking her entirely. “Yeah, no, you can’t come past the security line unless you’ve got a ticket.”

She couldn’t justify using her powers to burn him to the ground - he was, after all, just doing his job - but  _ God _ , did she want to. “Jared!” she screamed out instead, hating the fact that she was embarrassing herself in such a degrading situation, but equally desperate to get him to come back. “Jared!”

“Miss! Excuse me, miss!  _ You need to calm down and step out of the way _ , or we’re going to call extra security, do you understand? We will have to escort into custody.”

That got her attention and she stepped back. “Alright,” she said, calculating whether or not she could leap over him and not be immediately deported back to Japan. “Alright.”

“Rei?”

On hearing his voice she looked past the scanner machines and spotted him. “Jared!” she said, her face breaking into a smile. 

Another guard went after him. “Sir! Sir, no I’m sorry, you can’t come back through this way. Sir-”

Jared was trying to get back through the security line but was being physically held in place. “But she’s trying to talk to me.”

“I’m sorry but you can’t.” 

Rei practically huffed. “I need to tell him how I feel.”

The American stopped dead. “You… you do?”

Rei’s security guard was not having any of it. “I’m sorry but you’re not doing that in the middle of the line for airport security.”

He was  _ so  _ close to being toast he had no idea. This was impossibly difficult enough for her as it was. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“Miss if you don’t calm down-”

“I’ll show you calming d-”

Jared stepped in, his guard having let him go. “I’m sorry, man, listen, could we just talk over there?” He pointed to the free space on their left, where the border between security consisted of a hip-high glass fence with potted plants on top of them. “We won’t cross the line or anything, we’ll just talk over the fence.”

The guard sighed amid shouts by fellow passengers to, one, let them talk, and two, hurry the hell up. “You have five bloody minutes.”

“Thanks, man,” Jared went to high five him, genuinely grateful, but immediately retracted his hand when he saw the guard’s expression. “So…” he said as he and Rei made their way to their designated talking spot, “what’s wrong? We’ve only got a few minutes.”

“Shut up.” She spoke in that overly aggressive tone she used whenever she was extremely uncomfortable. “I know. This is really hard. Stop smiling.”

“I’m not smiling,” he said, grinning ear to ear.

“Yes, you are. You’re ridiculous and I shouldn’t have come,” she goes to turn around and leave.

“Well you did.” He reaches for her hand, anchoring her in place. “You pulled a classic rom com finale and everything. You can’t go before you deliver ‘ _ the speech’ _ .”

“Yes, well it didn’t turn out like I expected it would.”

“It still can.”

She glared at him. “I’m not kissing you across this fence.”

“Ok,” he said, not believing her for a second, “sure.”

“Can we get a move on please?” the security guard said, giving Rei a perfect excuse to redirect her anger. 

“Just give me a second!” 

“Look, Rei, I’m getting on this plane, but we have WhatsApp and Skype and email, plus I’ll be back in less than a month, anyway. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

She took in a deep breath, calming her nerves. “I do. Want to, I mean, it’s just… it’s hard finding the right words.”

He figured he could make it easier on her, since they were short on time, and not because he’d been waiting for nearly a whole year to have her tell him what she was about to say. “You mean you want to admit that you’re in love with me?”

She looked at him, wide-eyed and fearful, like she was somehow surprised that he knew. And then she sighed. Usagi was right. Mina was right. They were all damn well, frustratingly right. Loving someone - the right someone - made you better, not worse. And Jared was the right someone. “Yes.” 

“And you wanted to tell me that you know I love you, too?”

“Do you?”

He scoffed. “Of course I do, you know I do, I’ve said it already.”

She bit her lip. “Then say it again.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “I love you, Rei. God I love you so much it’s ridiculous.”

She smiled, happier than she thought she would be. “You were right, about being connected. I know you feel things others do, but it’s there for me.” She realised she wasn’t making sense, so she tried to explain. “When it comes to you, when it comes to Usagi, there’s a feeling there, just like you said there was. At first I thought it was just my own emotions, my own silliness getting away from me, but you’re right. When you love someone, when you really do, there’s something… here,” she took his hand and placed it on her heart, “ _ you’re _ here.”

A huff from a third party had them both look over to the guard. “You guys are making absolutely no bloody sense. Just kiss her please, and leave, you’re holding up the queue.”

“But we’re not blocking anyone!” Rei snapped.

“Everyone’s watching. You need to let him go, miss. He’s already said he’s coming back in less than a month.”

“Fine.” Having no choice she reached across the border and drew Jared down to her lips. The kiss was hard, an effort to push every aggressively deep feeling she had for him out into the open. When they stopped, before they pulled apart completely, she leaned her forehead against his and whispered, “I love you, Jared.”

He breathed once, and then said, “I know.”

She pulled away fully. “That’s a film reference, isn’t it?”

He grinned that shit-eating grin she both loved and hated. “It is.”

“God,” she rolled her eyes, “you’re such a film geek.”

The guard cleared his throat threateningly. 

“I have to go, babe. I’ll text you.”

“You’d better.”

He kissed her quickly again. “I’ll miss you.”

“I know.”

“That’s not quite the right quote,” he said, “but I see what you did there and I appreciate it.”

“Just get on the bloody plane.”

“Bye.”

He walked away, and it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. As soon as he’d collected his items from having been scanned by security he picked up his phone to text her. She’d already messaged him a gif of Han Solo being frozen in carbon. “God,” he said to no one and everyone, “I love that woman.”


End file.
